Got this Buslogic BT-440C/445C FLOPPY and SCSI VLB in the mail. Is supposed to be regarded as one of the highend SCSI VLB cards so I'm interested to see how it holds up against my Adaptec controllers.

quicknick wrote on 2020-10-12, 10:44:

Got this MX11800 a while ago for a bit over 1€, managed to deep-clean it (it was really needed!) so now it looks and works pretty good, apart from the trackball which was missing from the start, so if anyone got a spare trackball assembly please give me a shout 😀
MX11800.jpg

Don't have a spare as my son is using my 11800 - but don't get your hopes up about the ball. Even when cleaned it's small, nasty and inaccurate.

dionb wrote on 2020-10-12, 12:59:

Don't have a spare as my son is using my 11800 - but don't get your hopes up about the ball. Even when cleaned it's small, nasty and inaccurate.

Yeah, I did try fitting a standard mouse ball in there and it's too big. But even nasty and inaccurate is better than trying to move the cursor by inserting the finger in that hole (sounds nastier than it really is 😁 )

vetz wrote on 2020-10-12, 12:51:

Got this Buslogic BT-440C/445C FLOPPY and SCSI VLB in the mail. Is supposed to be regarded as one of the highend SCSI VLB cards so I'm interested to see how it holds up against my Adaptec controllers.

Nice one. Please do share results when tested. I doubt it'll be much faster, but might be more compatible in some motherboards as bus-master VL-Bus is a kind of black magic.

mpe wrote on 2020-10-12, 13:22:

Nice one. Please do share results when tested. I doubt it'll be much faster, but might be more compatible in some motherboards as bus-master VL-Bus is a kind of black magic.

Yes, I will. Busmastering with the Adaptec SCSI controllers when running the POD83 in WB mode is not possible (as far as I remember, been a long time), so will check that as well. I don't expect miracles when it comes to extra performance.

An impulse buy / frivolous purchase which arrived today -

It was sold as untested with no PSU, it requires an external PSU that connects via a weird 3-pin DIN style plug.

I already own 2 of these ePOS systems in white/beige cases, 1 of which has a damaged case, so I already had a working PSU to test it with. I figured even if it didn't work, I could use it's case to replace the damaged one. Plus it was an "all proceeds to charity" auction on eBay, so another excuse to purchase. 🤣

Plugged it in and it works perfectly. So I guess now I own 3 haha. I don't have any need for this system at the moment, but it may be useful in the future. Would make a nice compact year 2000 gaming PC, but lacks AGP.

Specs:

Intel Celeron 1.2GHz (Tualatin)
Via PLE133T Chipset
256MB PC133 SODIMM RAM (single RAM slot)
40GB IDE HDD
Trident Blade 3D/ProMedia 8MB Onboard Graphics
VIA AC'97 Onboard Sound (with Sound Blaster emulation option in BIOS, though no Game Port - just empty solder pads)
2x PCI slots, 1x ISA slot
OS: Windows XP Professional

I won this Sony Vaio PCG-N505X yesterday (seller's photo):

It's only a 333 MHz Celeron (Mendocino core), so it's really a bit on the weak side CPU-wise. But I love the ultraportable form factor, it comes complete with external drives, power supply etc. and it cost only 30€ shipped, so why not...
The onboard sound is obviously a Yamaha DS-XG (YMF744C) with real OPL3 and good DOS compatibility so that's a plus, too.

I am currently bidding on another item that will make one of my builds really complete, will disclose later in case I win 😉

vetz wrote on 2020-10-12, 12:51:

Got this Buslogic BT-440C/445C FLOPPY and SCSI VLB in the mail. Is supposed to be regarded as one of the highend SCSI VLB cards so I'm interested to see how it holds up against my Adaptec controllers.

That card looks really nice, looking forward to see how it matches against Adaptec. One thing I noticed: there appears to be a bent pin on the main BusLogic chip (right side, between C9 and C10), so you might want to straighten that one before testing.

gex85 wrote on 2020-10-12, 15:59:

I am currently bidding on another item that will make one of my builds really complete, will disclose later in case I win 😉

So, here it is (seller's photo, obviously):

The Diamond Multimedia C400 motherboard. Slot 1, Intel 440 BX, really nothing special about it, except the fact that it is one of the very few motherboard models that Diamond ever sold.
Some background can for example be found here, here and here.
I currently have a Diamond-themed Pentium II 450 MHz build around an Epox EP-BX3 motherboard, featuring:
- Diamond Viper V550 (Nvidia Riva TNT)
- Diamond Monster 3D II (3dfx Voodoo2) SLI
- Diamond FirePort SCSI adapter
- Diamond Sonic Impact S90 (Aureal Vortex 1)
(Still lacking some Diamond network card like the HomeFree / HomeNetwork 10 Mbps card or some wireless network card, but they were very rare over here it seems).

So although there's nothing really special about this board in terms of features or performance, and although it isn't even engineered by Diamond Multimedia themselves but just a re-labelled Micronics product, I always felt that I need that motherboard to really make the build complete.

gex85 wrote on 2020-10-12, 18:16:

[...]otherboard. Slot 1, Intel 440 BX, really nothing special about it, except the fact that it is one of the very few motherboard models that Diamond ever sold.
[...]

Back when this mobo was new and current I got it - because it was Diamond branded 😀
I still have it and hope some day in the future I will also make a diamond-build 🤣
it's great and stable, good buy!

TheMobRules wrote on 2020-10-12, 16:33:

vetz wrote on 2020-10-12, 12:51:

Got this Buslogic BT-440C/445C FLOPPY and SCSI VLB in the mail. Is supposed to be regarded as one of the highend SCSI VLB cards so I'm interested to see how it holds up against my Adaptec controllers.

That card looks really nice, looking forward to see how it matches against Adaptec. One thing I noticed: there appears to be a bent pin on the main BusLogic chip (right side, between C9 and C10), so you might want to straighten that one before testing.

Cheers for the headsup! I'll fix it and look over the whole card before firing it up.

This arrived today, but not had chance to test it out. Super Socket 7 Iwill XA100 Plus Rev 1.3 Motherboard. Regret selling my GA-5AX recently so nice to have a ATX SS7 board again. From the small bit of reading of this board, it appears it has a kind of SoftSFB in the bios allowing you to select fsb. This will be really useful combined with my K6-III+ CPU and setmul!

Got this Macintosh Classic II in the mail today, it doesn't work (doesn't even give me anything on the CRT at all). I dunno what's wrong, the board definitely is a bit crusty but I've seen even worse Classic IIs still give something on the screen so I wonder if I also have analog board problems.

StevOnehundred wrote on 2020-10-08, 15:12:

Intel D850GB (socket 423) arrived yesterday. It's got that extra 6 pin auxiliary power header, so any quick recommendations for a PSU to match up with it?

I run a D850GB in my retro system using just the 4-pin and 20-pin connections, and nothing plugged into that auxiliary connector and have never had an issue. I run an old Coolermaster RS-350 power supply. So I don't really think you need to worry about plugging that one in.

Apricot XEN-i - British built 286 AT clone. Came with the trackball mouse and the funky keyboard with the LCD and programmable buttons like a Logitech G15.

Needed new batteries and a hard drive but got hold of the factory restore diskettes and now it runs MS-DOS 3.2 with your choice of GEM or Windows 1.03.

EvieSigma wrote on 2020-10-12, 20:06:

Got this Macintosh Classic II in the mail today, it doesn't work (doesn't even give me anything on the CRT at all). I dunno what […]
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Got this Macintosh Classic II in the mail today, it doesn't work (doesn't even give me anything on the CRT at all). I dunno what's wrong, the board definitely is a bit crusty but I've seen even worse Classic IIs still give something on the screen so I wonder if I also have analog board problems.

Could be the PRAM battery. I'm a bit rusty on which Macs had the feature, but quite a few had a pseudo-soft power on, where the standby power for the power button was delivered by the PRAM battery. No current out of the battery = no power on.

Mac Classics need every lytic capacitor on the logic board changed, first and foremost. None work anymore with their original caps.

CelGen wrote on 2020-10-12, 22:32:

Mac Classics need every lytic capacitor on the logic board changed, first and foremost. None work anymore with their original caps.

While that is true, Classics/Classic IIs with bad logic board caps usually give SOMETHING on the screen, even if it's just lines or a checkerboard. That and a weird "chattering" noise that occurs for about a second when you turn the computer on suggests analog board problems as well.

Keeping the dream of playing DOOM on Japanese PC-98 hardware alive.

C-Bus S3 928 2MB

Today's $50 e-waste haul:

Some PS/2--AT keyboard adapters (both kinds), a MIDI cable, an AUI to 10BaseT media converter, some generic 8-bit network cards...

But the star of today's show is the VLB Super I/O, the first time I've ever found a VLB card "in the wild":

And this WD8003EP adapter, which has a really awesome feature: it's boot ROM can be configured to reside *anywhere* in the upper 512KB of memory, and it has a mode that lets you stick a 32K SRAM in the boot ROM socket! I already have one of these cards (with a couple of SRAM chips on their way) so I was quite excited to find another one. Even if it does look like it has been dragged through a paddock:

Anyhow, with a 16-bit ISA Ethernet adapter and a 32-bit VLB super I/O, my 486 build gets a little bit closer to completion... still need to find a VLB video card, though, so I might be waiting a while...